


(Somewhat) Pleasant Surprises

by Yalbi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Multi, i don't think there's a plot but anyway, let's get this weird party started
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6413212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yalbi/pseuds/Yalbi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of weird students, things unable to be unseen, and teachers reading erotica in public, whatever expectations Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke have about high school are about to be crushed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Somewhat) Pleasant Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT 4/27: New look, same great taste.

They walk to school from home for the first time.

“What do you think high school's gonna be like?” Naruto exclaims more than asks, almost skipping down the sidewalk. “I think it's gonna be awesome!”

“Absolutely not,” Sasuke says.

Sakura takes in Naruto's hair, fashion choices, and tasteful Yo-kai Watch backpack. “He's going to die out there,” she whispers to Sasuke, who nods.

==

Naruto literally kicks the door open, crushing a guy admiring some insect against the wall and running into the school with a hasty, “Sorry!”

Sakura sprints after him, barely in reach of his backpack, and yells, “Naruto, stop! What are you doing?!”

Sasuke walks in and glances at the guy. “I don't know him,” he says.

==

“My name is Yamato,” the man at the front of the room says, turning to the class once he's written the moniker on the whiteboard. “I normally teach Biology, but I'll be your Skills teacher for the semester.”

“That's it? That's your whole name?” Naruto pipes up from the first row. His grin is incredulous and his raised eyebrow is doubly so. “No Mr. Something-Something? Just Yamato?”

“Yes,” Yamato replies, his face suddenly terrifying and reminding everyone of the pale look of death. “Is there a problem with that?”

Naruto gulps and deflates in his chair. “N-no,” he mumbles, “just Yamato is fine,” and he decides to forgo all the pranks he'd been planning for the entire semester.

== 

Their English teacher, Kakashi Hatake, is right obsessed with this mysterious-looking _Icha Icha_ series that he never seems to not be reading whenever they see him.

So Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke sneak into his classroom when they know he's out, wondering what sort of high-end aristocratic literature their teacher, who'd introduced himself as a connoisseur of the written word, finds so incredibly engrossing.

“Here,” Naruto exclaims, pulling a book titled _Icha Icha Violence_ off Kakashi's desk and glancing at its spine. “It's the second book in the series.”

He cracks it open and they gather to read, their expectations rapidly dimming as they scan sentence after sentence until Sakura says, her voice small: “It's… it's porn.”

==

Another mystery about Kakashi Hatake: the man's face, which is always obscured by a mask and matching headband. Talk of what he has going on under there is never a topic the student body—and the faculty, if they ever admit to it—shies away from.

“What if we took him out for ramen?” Naruto suggests as they brainstorm ways to finagle a look at Kakashi's face.

“What? That's stupid,” Sasuke says. “You're stupid.”

“Guys, come on,” Sakura says, shaking her head. “There has to be an option that doesn't come from Naruto's brain.”

The best option they come up with is Follow Him Home and Watch as He Changes and/or Takes a Shower, and eventually they just drop the subject altogether.

==

“Dude, awesome backpack!” Kiba says to Naruto as they pass him in the hallway.

Naruto laughs and waves at him and exclaims, “Thanks, yours too!” even though Kiba's backpack is covered in blurry pictures of his dog.

Sakura and Sasuke just watch them and wonder if it's some sort of horrible omen.

== 

Sai's the weird art kid who always has paper and pencil in hand and tries to hide in the locker room during PE, and one day Sakura manages to corner him in the hallway, sitting on the floor next to him and peering at his open sketchbook.

“Wow, that's really good,” she says at an unfinished drawing of a tree, the lines of its roots darker and surer than the rest of it. “Where did you learn to draw?”

“I'm self-taught,” Sai replies, and he surrenders his sketchbook when she asks to look through it.

“Holy shit, Sai, these are all really—um…” She stops at an unnecessarily detailed sketch of a tastefully nude Naruto, his back facing the artist. “Why…?”

“He is an unconventional but simple person,” Sai says. “I wished to convey this through my art.”

“Well, you're right,” Sakura says slowly, reminding herself to wash her hands after this.

==

“So tell me,” Kakashi says as he stands lazily at his podium but puts in the effort to look at each and every student. “What is the primary theme of _Siddhartha_?”

Ino answers before Hinata can muster the courage to raise her hand. “That enlightenment and personal fulfillment can't truly be attained through study or earthly means alone.”

“Exactly,” Kakashi says, nodding sagely. “In fact, it's very similar to this one book I read where the lonely housewife doesn't find herself satisfied by her husband, but also finds that she can't fulfill all her desires with her tantalizing pool boy. The only way she can truly, earnestly have a complete love life is to do both—”

Sakura ignores the rest and turns to Ino with a scowl. “How is he not fired?” she whispers harshly, but Ino just nods and continues to gaze at Kakashi, dreamy smile on her face.

==

Halloween is a mess. Naruto arrives dressed as naruto but immediately wants to emulate Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji's three-person costume: Shikamaru making up the front of the horse, Chouji making up the back, and Ino riding on top as a valiant knightly princess, complete with a sword, probably real.

“Come on, Sasuke!” Naruto exclaims. “You can be on top of me!”

Sasuke spits out his drink.

==

They have to write down their goals for some reason—short-term goals and long-term goals, realistic goals and Naruto's goals—and for some other reason Yamato decides to ask the class what they wrote.

“I wanna be President!” Naruto exclaims, jumping up from his seat in a special brand of excitement that's exclusive to him.

“I want to be an accomplished doctor,” Sakura states proudly.

“I want to fight my brother,” Sasuke says tonelessly, “Dragon Ball Z-style.”

“What about you, Yamato?” Naruto asks, smiling innocently. “Do you have any goals, or are you so old that you've given up on them and resigned yourself to a life of sadness and failure?”

“What? No,” Yamato replies, but then he gets this distant look and says, “Well… you could say that my goal is to 'have senpai notice me,'” inserting air quotes there, “but right now I'm mostly just glad that no one has referenced Pokemon in their answer so far.”

On the other side of the room, Kiba quickly erases his answer.

==

The gym fills with the sound of Might Guy's excessively loud laughter as he does full long jump routines in front of the class. “FEEL YOUR YOUTH COURSING THROUGH YOUR VEINS, YOUNG SCHOLARS!” he shouts in the middle of a flip.

“YES, MR. GUY!” Lee enthusiastically yells back.

“DO NOT LET YOUR ENERGY GO TO WASTE!”

“I WOULDN'T DREAM OF IT, MR. GUY!”

“Jesus Christ,” Tenten mutters as Sasuke leaves to join Sai in the locker room.

==

Naruto stops paying attention to his textbook and stares (not very) surreptitiously at Kakashi and Yamato, who are standing close together in the school library's romance section and quietly whispering about something or another. “Whoa, what?” he says. “What are Yamato and Mr. Hatake doing over there?”

Sakura glances at the scene (somewhat more) discreetly and twists her face in confusion when the two start giggling at the book Kakashi had pulled from the shelf. “I… I don't know,” she says, feeling more disoriented the longer she looks at them. “Is… is Yamato actually smiling? With his face? From happiness?”

“Who even cares,” Sasuke grumbles from behind his own book that's propped up like a wall, but he nevertheless sneaks peeks at them, starting to sweat from how uncomfortable it all is.

==

“By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am,” Sasuke reads aloud monotonously. Around him, the girls of the class—and one very lonely guy—watch him intently and drink in his words, almost swooning on their desks. “My name dear saint is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee, had I it written I would tear the word.”

“My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's uttering yet I know the sound,” Naruto quickly grumbles as the rest of the class giggles, “art thou not Romeo and a Montague.”

From his podium, Kakashi claps and whistles. “Bravo, bravo!” he exclaims just a little too loudly.

==

“You know, I have some more Shakespeare you can recite for extra credit,” Kakashi says, barely getting the last few words out before Sasuke and Naruto simultaneously shout, “No.”

==

Principal Tsunade Senju sighs at Sakura and Ino, who stand in front of her desk and are covered in spaghetti sauce and pastry dough respectively. “So you got into a fight during Home Ec,” she says.

“Yes, ma'am,” they say.

“And during that fight, both of you knocked out Konohamaru Sarutobi, a relative of one of your teachers?”

“He was making lewd comments about catfights!” Ino exclaims angrily, and then remembers who she's talking to. “I—I mean… yes, ma'am.”

“I see,” Tsunade says seriously, and then she surprises them by beaming and nodding in approval. “I would've done the same thing. Three days' detention for both of you.”

Sakura and Ino leave her office confused but happy.

==

Detention with Ino isn't all that bad, Sakura realizes.

==

There's one exchange student at the school: Temari, a girl who apparently really likes fans, always carries fans, maybe talks to fans, who knows.

“Or maybe she's… fansexual,” Naruto says, laughing at his own joke. His own stupid, stupid joke.

“Naruto, you're terrible,” Sakura snaps at him. “That's not funny.”

“Sakura's right, it's not,” Shikamaru says, dropping into their conversation. “I know for a fact she's straight.” He glances pointedly at them. “Personally.”

Sasuke spits out his drink.

==

Sakura's struggling with her schoolwork for once, the first page of what she hopes will be her English essay lying completely blank on the table, mocking her with an imaginary, papery laugh that she thinks paper would laugh like if it could.

“'What is the ultimate lesson Winston learns in _1984…_ '” she mumbles to herself, reading from the prompt Kakashi had handed out the day before.

She grins when she suddenly remembers—right, that the Party rules every facet of Airstrip One's citizens, and as long as it can control the most basic aspects of human identity it will continue to rule indefinitely—but freezes as she realizes she can only recall it because of the plotline of one of Kakashi's erotic novels: A young woman caught in a dangerous but oh so addictive affair with an older man, their lives becoming more and more intertwined until she doesn't know where she ends and he begins—

“Oh dear god no,” she mutters, wondering how it had all come to this.

==

“There's something wrong with this school,” Tenten sighs.

Neji just nods as they watch Kakashi and Guy race each other around the track, Guy somehow tripping over completely flat land.

==

They get a partner project for history—“Just present a battle fought during the 20th century,” Asuma had said, unlit cigarette metaphorically between his lips—and Naruto finds himself partnered with some guy named Shino.

“We should present on the Emu War,” Shino says, tapping his pencil with an ant-shaped eraser topper against the table.

“Who are you again?” Naruto asks.

Shino looks at him (or does he?). “I'm Shino,” he says flatly. “You tried to kill me on the first day of school.”

Naruto hums and nods. “Oh, right, okay,” he says, smiling, but he's already forgotten the dude's name.

==

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Sakura says and she slams the classroom door shut, screwing her eyes closed because she didn't just see her English teacher stripping her Skills teacher nope nothing like that here nuh-uh not at all.

The door cracks open a fraction, and she turns to see Kakashi's eye peering through the gap and his arm emerging with a twenty dollar bill in his fist. “You didn't see anything,” he says ominously.

“Didn't see what, Mr. Hatake?”

Kakashi grins. “Good girl,” he says, and Sakura takes the money and runs down the hall as fast as she can.

==

Sakura can't make eye contact with Yamato for the next most of the days.

==

Hinata, who probably hasn't spoken to a single person for the entirety of the school year, approaches Naruto the week before prom. Everyone in their vicinity stares.

“N-Naruto,” she says in a whisper so high-pitched that it sounds like a tea kettle starting to whistle, “I—I was just wondering if… maybe… you'd want to go to prom with m—”

“What?” Naruto interrupts, face scrunched up. “Sorry, I can't hear you. See you later, Hinata!”

“O-oh… okay,” Hinata says, but then she watches him walk away. “Actually, this is good enough.”

==

“Wanna go to prom with me, cutie?” Ino says once she's ambushed Sai on his way to art class— ambush being a very accurate term considering she'd staked the scene outside the classroom in camouflage gear she'd gotten from her prepper dad, belly-crawling over the lockers to remain inconspicuous.

“I—I—I—I—I—I—,” a very nervous Sai stammers since his only knowledge of romance comes from a book Kakashi had let him borrow, then he regains control of his mouth and says, “S-sorry, but I do not think I'm ready for such things,” and then he leaves, doing sick parkour tricks he'd learned from the one day he'd been in PE all the way down the hall.

==

“Shikamaru told me your joke,” Temari says to Naruto, a slight glare on her face.

Naruto wants to disappear in the wind and nervously says, “R-really? W-well, you see, about that—”

She grabs his shoulder—and smiles. “It was funny,” she says and leads a perplexed Naruto in surprisingly loud laughter.

==

Sasuke only agrees to go to prom because Naruto wants him to, and Sakura, who'd been planning to stay home and train herself to read without thinking about how this and this literature would translate to that and that erotica, decides to go last minute just to see Sasuke dance in a tux.

She isn't disappointed.

==

They eventually break away from the pack of promenade people and spill into the hallway, Sasuke gagging from all the humans he'd been forced to be in one room with, and they see Yamato and Kakashi tumble out of a supply closet halfway down the hall, their clothes and hair mussed and messy.

“Uh, well, I guess it's not in that supply closet, either,” Kakashi says when he sees them. “Guess we'll have to go check another one, Tenzou.”

“You're not fooling anybody,” Sakura says.

“Wait, what are you looking for? Who's Tenzou?” Naruto asks, but Kakashi hands him twenty dollars anyway.

==

To her disappointment, Sakura passes Kakashi's English class with an A.

Actually, everyone passes with an A.

“Wh—what?” she says, shocked and bewildered and a little betrayed since she'd assumed that at least Naruto or Kiba would get C's or fail or somehow not even get a grade at all.

Kakashi suddenly slings an arm around her shoulders. “See, _this_ is why I'm not fired,” he says, and he probably would've winked at her had she seen both of his eyes.

==

“Well, it's the last day of school,” Yamato says with a sigh. “I hope everyone's achieved at least one of their goals this year.” Then he smiles and says, “I know I did.”

Sakura shoves an open book in her own face and softly screams into the pages.

==

Ino stops Sakura before she can leave and holds out a cleanly-cut bit of paper. “Here,” she says, pressing it into Sakura's hands. “Call me over the summer, okay?”

Sakura watches her walk away, and then gazes at the carefully printed sky-blue ink on the paper.

==

They walk home from school for the last time.

“That was awesome!” Naruto exclaims, looking at the signatures covering his yearbook as he walks. “Who's excited for next year?!”

“Jesus fucking Christ no,” Sasuke says.

“No, _god_ ,” Sakura says, but she smiles nevertheless.

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:
> 
> 1\. Does Skills class exist or no. There was something similar at my high school but it was only like 30 minutes long and came right after third period, so we didn't move to a different classroom. Oh, wait. It was called advisory. Shit.
> 
> 2\. It was my world history teacher who actually lectured from a podium. He was a skier who seemed high all the time and had more than one concussion over the course of the year. He was awesome.
> 
> 3\. I'd originally written a scene where Iruka would look at all the weird new students and go all, "Christ, I'm old/out of touch with this generation, what the fuck," but I hated it, deleted it, and then forgot Iruka existed. So.
> 
> 4\. You know Konohamaru would have Home Ec class just for the ladies.


End file.
